The Woman Behind the Scholarship

Georgia Hoy Stewart was born in 1917 and grew up during the Depression. As a minister’s daughter, she moved around a lot between Washington and Oregon, but she always knew she wanted to become a teacher. She began her career teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in the Pacific Northwest with plans to teach her way around the world but, as she said, “Hitler put a stop to that” with the outbreak of WWII. She married, raised her children, and never quit teaching the students of Sedro Woolley, Washington. You couldn’t go to the grocery story with her without someone stopping you to say, “Are you Mrs. Stewart? You taught me/my son/ my daughter . . . “ She kept learning throughout her life. She joined a study group, focusing on international issues. She traveled, gardened, built things, taught generations of students. She seemed to have the knack of knowing just how much chaos and creativity it took to inspire students, and then just how to settle everyone down to listening and learning. It is in the spirit of supporting creative, inspiring teachers everywhere that her family and the Arts Council for Youth have created the Georgia Stewart Scholarship.